Crime

Lapdancers cleared over alleged kidnap plot

An actress and three lapdancers have been cleared of kidnapping a club boss who failed to pay them £42,000 in wages.

DJ and producer Charlotte Devaney, 34, starred alongside comedian and actor Simon Pegg in hit Hollywood comedy How To Lose Friends and Alienate People and collaborated with US rapper Snoop Dogg on her latest single, Flip It.

In March 2012, she recruited 60 lapdancers to work for Curtis Woodman, 34, at his pop-up nightclub during the famous Cheltenham Festival.

Authorities closed the Embassy Club in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, on its third night because the dancers stripped off - despite rules ordering them to wear nipple tassels and bikinis.

Mr Woodman refused to pay Devaney and the lapdancers more than £42,000 they had earned during the club's first two nights.

He told Bristol Crown Court that six months later, on September 3 2012, Devaney, three dancers and two brothers, who had been hired as ''heavies'', arrived at his work premises in Tewkesbury.

The local businessman claimed he was bundled into a BMW, beaten up and forced to transfer £4,800 into Devaney's bank account during a ''terrifying'' two-hour ordeal.